A great variety of drink dispensers are known in the patent literature.
European Published Patent Application EP 1,514,836, published Mar. 16, 2003, of CELLI S.p.A, describes an Enhanced Refrigerating Carbonator for drinks, wherein there is provided, as stated in the Abstract “An enhanced carbonator for carbonating drinks, comprising a sealed container (2), provided at least with a first . . . inlet (31) for supplying the drink to be carbonated, a second inlet (32) for supplying the gas, under a certain pressure, to be added to the drink and at least an outlet (33) of the carbonated drink in correspondence with which is integrated a flow control unit (35) for regulating the flow of the carbonated drink. Inside the container is present a rotor (4) and outside actuator means (5) able to create a rotating magnetic field which remotely commands a continuation rotation of said rotor (4), the container (2) also comprise in its interior at least an evaporator (7) and a coil (8), immersed in the evaporated drink itself, able to create a substantially homogeneous cooling both of the carbonated drink and of at least any other drink which traverses the coil thanks to the presence of the rotor (4).”
In attempting to create a compact commercial product based on the foregoing teaching, applicant switched the general positions of the evaporator and the coil and initially encountered a problem of poor cold water dispensing performance. This was presumably due to an insufficient level of water circulation in the sealed container.
In order to overcome this problem, applicant increased the power, speed and size of the rotor, but this increased the amount of bubbles generated and present in the vicinity of the evaporator, which lowered the quantity of water circulating in contact with the evaporator and caused the evaporator to freeze up.
In an attempt to alleviate the problem of too many bubbles, applicant partially closed the gas inlet. This improved cool water dispensing performance but the evaporator still tended to freeze up. More seriously, the level of carbonation decreased to an unacceptable level.
The present invention represents a solution to the above problems.